Scrap-box

There’s so much that this place can be! I am truly excited by the possibilities.

Here is a spot here where we can keep track of things. I’m being intentionally vague. There need to be statements of intention airing potential directions this project might take, and there need to be supporting documents that stand outside of the flow of posts that tend to be intentionally topical, at least in the sense that they follow one after the other.

At this point, this is just beginning. There’s a jumble of parts and pieces that might eventually find a place. Develop a set of relations between them. In some cases to form a hierarchy, in others a plurality. For now, it’s more important to place them somewhere than to worry about finding the right place.

A painter has a mis en place as does a chef. The difference is that once a chef is executing a dish, he has standardized and reduced that mis en place to hold only the essentials for that dish. The painter, or the chef inventing a dish, has a different approach. Cagier, more pragmatic. In a way that might seem surprising – we expect the executor to be the pragmatic one… – its a mis en place that leaves room for the unexpected. The likely ingredients are trotted out, but so are some that seem incongruous. Amounts aren’t predetermined. As much space as is available is cleared in preparation, physically and mentally. It’s not a standard process, though there is a long-standing practice: a body of habit and experience there to be drawn upon as needed.

This is the situation here, now. We don’t start with what we need. We start with what we have. And, we understand that we don’t yet know what we will need while we maintain a certain confidence in the expectation that we will recognize what we need when we find it. This can be messy. It’s often a private, even internal process. This is a laboratory, a studio for thinking about and discussing design, and there will be a conscious effort to be transparent about how this dish is made.

Two ingredients claim my attention and need to be put on the table.

First, this place will be a gathering place, not a mega-phone. I want to use this place to put out my views and say what I want to say; but I also want to do this within a place that allows for, begs and makes room for, other voices. I want to extend an invitation to you to contribute and I want that invitation to be broad in its implications. At the same time, I reserve the right to police this place and ask that contributions be made within a spirit of collaboration, with the intention to develop, establish and maintain mutual trust between the participants. Coercion, bad faith, plain old boneheadedness will not be acceptable. Beyond that, I pledge to maintain an open mind and ask the same of you.

The second point is quite narrow and specific in comparison. I want to establish a collection of short thoughts. A spot where I, we, can set out little bits, condiments, spices, ingredients without a specific application. A place for them to rest until a better spot arises. A cupboard? A bin? How about a scrap-box? Good enough for now….

So that’s what this page is then, a place of hope and anticipation, where odds and ends can collect until we find our way forward.